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Friday, 13 December 2013

Beastly Book Review

Okay so today I
finished a book called Beastly, by Alex Flinn, which is essentially about an
arrogant jerk who is all about looks and beauty who learns his
lesson through ticking off a witch and her casting a spell on him.

I think people who
like high-school sort romances and cute stories that are plays on classic fairy
tales will quite like this book, as it is a quite obvious play on Beauty and the Beast. It is quite didactic in
its whole story and all, so it does have a moral and meaning.

Okay so if you are
still intrigued and haven't read it, go read it now, come back and we can
discuss! Bye!

**SPOILER SECTION**

So let's start with
the characters.

Kyle: I normally
really love the arrogant jerks in books (to some extent) so when I disliked
Kyle I was pretty sure things were looking grim. He wasn't a super- endearing
character, but they never are, but really, I just disliked reading from his
perspective. As his character progressed, I still didn't love him, but I also
didn't hate him as much. I think when he became Adrian I just wished for
someone else's perspective, because he went from being so horrid and boring
that I didn't like him to being so kind and boring that I didn't like him. It
was disappointing, but there have been worse characters I've heard narrate. I
also didn't like how he went about finding his love, and about finding Lindy. I
feel like the way they did it wasn't realistic, but I'll delve into that later.

Will: I think out of
all the main characters, Will was my favourite. He was smart, kind, funny and
obviously the person who was there to distract us from being in Kyle's mind so
much. He gave me someone else to focus on when Kyle was annoying me. I liked
his character. Point done.

Lindy: Ok I know
this is more my fault than anyone else. I watched the trailer for the movie
before I read about Lindy's character but I had already met Kyle. So where I
loved Alex Pettyfer as Kyle, I already had Kyle in my head, but where I hated
Vanessa Hudgens as Lindy, I couldn't change my mind's view of her. It was
pretty suckish. I also found her character not as spunky as I like female
characters to be, and I know they all can't be spunky, but she was just the
general stereotype of a not-spunky girl, one who reads Jane Austen and sits
looking at roses. I just felt like her character could have been more fleshed
out and cooler.

Magda: From the
start I had a feeling Magda was a witch, or something of the like. She was
weird and I didn't have that much of an opinion on her other than my initial
thoughts that she was supernatural, where I was round about right.

Kendra: I really
liked Kendra and I would've liked to see more of her. She had the spunk I
wanted Lindy to have, and she had a cool, witchy feel which I really liked. I
loved how she punished Kyle, because let's face it, he deserved it. What I
didn't like was that as the book progressed, she became softer. I'm pretty sure
this was done so her character could develop, but honestly, I don' think she
needed to be developed. She was making the right choices, and was teaching Kyle
a lesson, I don't think she needed to be developed as well. I also didn't like
how she eluded to regretting cursing Kyle. He was awful! He deserved it!

So the general
good/bad comments about this book.

The opening scene is
set out like a chat room, where a man is talking about setting up a chat room
for those who go through strange changes. Immediately, I think someone is
trying to find out more about Kyle and his condition, and that cyber-safety
will be an underlying issue in the book, but that was fleeting. I really love
stories being set out differently, like in chat rooms or web history or diary
entries. It really intrigues me. And like every other time, I loved these parts
of the book. I was waiting for the chat room characters to appear in real life,
to pop into Kyle's real world. I was more than sad when they didn't.

My main negative
point about this whole book has to be the whole Lindy/Kyle love story.

The way he was
determined to love her and vice versa, the way he kidnapped her and held her
there, it just felt artificial and unrealistic. You don't just fall in love
with the one person you're around a lot. It's not really realistic to find
"the one" that way. I felt like Kyle was forcing himself to love her.
I also felt that finding they loved one another was rushed, yet I don't think I
want this book any longer. I thought that whole thing was rather messy, but I
guess it can be overlooked.
Another thing that really annoyed me was the way that Kyle begun looking for
girls on the internet. I don't know why, maybe it was because it was just so
jerkish and horrid that he'd be thinking of using someone that way, or if it
was because he was stalking girls everywhere, or if it was because he was just
getting on my nerves, but it really ticked me off. In fact, let's just say that most of the way any romance was done
in this book was really disappointing for me to read.

Despite a few flaws,
I think this book has taught me something as well. As I was reading it, and
after Kyle became the beast, I wanted him human again, because I guess I didn't
like reading about someone who wasn't at all attractive. As the story went on,
I realised what I was thinking and I realised just how superficial and horrid
that way of thinking was, but it's true. And I'm sure it wasn't just me who was thinking things like
that. I do think the messages and morals in this book are fantastic and I
totally think it was a brilliant premise and idea to write off. However, as
always, with a few tweaks, it could have been even better.

Favourite scene? My
favourite scene has to be at the dance, where he gives Lindy (before he knows
she's Lindy) the flower. I felt like we could see a bit of soft but still
encased in jerk which is the way I love characters. I also felt like this was
the only scene where Lindy had depth and made me intrigued by her character. I
also liked the girl from the halloween party, she was cool. However I can't
make this one of my favourite scenes because I am about to explain why it was
one of my least favourite scenes.

And also the scene
where Will got his sight back, that was so wonderful I was like

Least favourite
scene? Where Kyle is trying to break the spell with Sloane, that was pretty
bad, and also the scene where he was stalking the girls on the internet. And as
mentioned earlier, the halloween party scene because he broke the cool girl's
arm. That made me angry and sad and hate Kyle even more. I was like